Starched Shirts, Pencil Skirts
by Nerumi H
Summary: And other things Lily isn't meant to wear. She assists Kiyoteru as a student teacher, but soon finds the job is not for her. Especially when she has to compete with a first-grader for the teacher's attention. Lily/Kiyo, teacher's pet Yuki/Kiyo


.title.: **Starched Shirts, Pencil Skirts**

.summary.: **And other things Lily isn't meant to wear. She assists Kiyoteru as a student teacher, but soon finds the job is not for her. Especially when she has to compete with a first-grader for the teacher's attention.**

.characters.: **Lily/Hiyama Kiyoteru - Kaai Yuki/Hiyama Kiyoteru (not romance)**

.warnings.: **none**

.a/n.:** This was supposed to be a little more dedicated to Kiyo/Lily but...Yuki appeared.**

**I really hope all my formatting and text went through! Please warn me if something looks a little weird!**

**Masuda = last name of Lily's voice actress.**

**Enjoy! Lily is such a pleasure to write, but this was my first time with both Kiyoteru and Yuki. Let's see how it goes**.

**X**

The morning bell trilled, announcing the commencement of a day full of learning, where young minds will be honed (as Kiyoteru said) and imaginations will be squashed like cigarettes (Lily's suggestion), and to complete the picture, kids swarmed the halls-older grades groaning and dragging their feet like they were already in middle school, younger children pumping up the mood with their giggling and swinging rainbow backpacks.

Lily peeked through the window at the top of the door, hands cupped around her face. "Is this what it looks like to see bacteria under a microscope?" she mumbled at the waves of children that were prowling closer and closer to the classroom. "But with more bloodshed?"

Kiyoteru placed the whiteboard marker down with a click and a light chuckle. "You sound like you're eager for the day."

"Damn straight I am," Lily replied as she breathed on the glass to create a palette of fog, "especially the part where I get to roll around in my new cash."

A few chipper-looking little girls glanced up at this new woman on the other side of the glass, while she began to draw an image in the condensation.

"And get out of this stupid skirt," Lily added bitterly, tugging at the elastic fabric with her free hand. She spared a glance over her shoulder at the man. "Even if that happens to be at my lunch break."

She saw him blanch before she turned away, sniggering, and completed her drawing. It was the words, "Go home!", as best as she could manage in backwards text. The little girls seemed to think this was simply the most comical thing.

"I'm glad you at least put the effort into putting it on," Kiyoteru said brightly. She looked over at him and found him hovering closer than before. "And coming here to help me. It's very much appreciated."

Lily shrugged. "As long as I'm getting paid."

"In full," he affirmed. He sure did look happy to have her around in the workplace, though-his dark brown eyes a little warmer and a smile smoothing out that teacher-ly stoic look that she was not looking forwards to seeing on him all day. She sighed like it was such a burden, although her expression lightened at its finale, leading to her kissing him shortly on the lips. It would have been longer if not for the sudden tinny chorus of "Eww!"

Lily poisonously glared at the little weasels staring at them through the window-until Kiyoteru quickly took her by the arm and brought her back a step.

He sounded teasing. "What did I tell you?"

She rolled her blue eyes. "Don't be a bitch to the little kids cuz they don't know any better."

"Well, it was a bit more clear than that... But, good."

"Arf, arf."

She got another smile out of him-and he returned the favour by wiping away all possibility of _her_ smiles by reaching for the doorknob. As he pulled the gates to her certain doom, she swept away in her high-heels to his desk, where she slouched in his leather chair.

When at least thirty snotty little kids flooded into the classroom, she made sure she had Kiyoteru's eyes before pointedly pulling her feet off the floor as if there were mice on the loose.

But he stopped looking at her right away, another distraction taking her place. Tugging at his white buttoned shirt, was a brittle-looking girl garbed in a red curderoy dress and ribbon-tied black pigtails. He crouched down to hear what she had to say, even though Lily could bet it wasn't even worth his time at all; the little girl plopped her bag on the ground, unzipping it with a small-fingered clumsiness. To Kiyoteru's genuinely surprised smile she pulled out a lightly-crinkled drawing, bright and sunny with its summery colors.

Lily spun around in the chair as he put the drawing up on a wall completely made of cork. Other children's projects were posted there too, all personalized as much as little kids could manage, and to add to that collection, Lily noticed a sturdy-looking paperweight seated on his desk over the attendance sheets. She picked it up to inspect-a deck of cards-sized worm with a big smile, squirming next to a pockmarked strawberry, Kiyo's favourite fruit.

On the bottom was the name 'Yuki', in crooked text that contrasted the delicate work of the figurine itself.

She glanced up to the new picture on the wall of a fairly recognizable squirrel and a teepee of sticks. Yuki was written in the corner in the same thick black handwriting.

Obviously _someone_ was a teacher's pet.

"I made that," a girly voice said, closer to Lily than what was comfortable.

She twisted around the chair to see that black-haired girl staring at her with angelic wide eyes. Lily gave a terse smile.

"It's cool," she managed. Behind the suck-up, all the other children were hopping into their desks and chattering with friends.

Yuki asked, "Who are you?"

"You'll find out." Her gaze drifted to Kiyoteru who was at the board again, completely ignoring this girl who wasn't where she was supposed to be. Gah! Come get her away from me!

"What's your name?"

"I said, _you'll find out._" Lily struggled substantially with keeping the bristle out of her voice. Yuki played with the apple-shaped buttons on her dress, tilting her head in a way that might have been cute but Lily was too put off by her to notice.

"Go to y-"

"To your seat, Yuki," Kiyoteru interjected calmly. He angled the whiteboard marker to the row of desks closest to Lily-and it was the first seat that Yuki skipped to. Of course.

Kiyoteru stepped back and that was when Lily noticed what he was writing next to the date-Miss Masuda.

She pointedly jabbed a finger at it, staring at Yuki, but found the little girl's eyes completely glued to her teacher like he was made of gold and speaking in a language that could dictate the end of the world. Ugh.

He told them all to greet her, apparently, for soon Lily was under the spotlight of a frightening amount of kids chorusing, "Welcome, Miss Masuda." She gave a half-assed wave and smile back-until Kiyoteru gave her a look and she decided it was more presentable to at least get to her feet.

They said the chant again, and she waved again, and then some smartass named Yuki piped up.

"Is she your girlfriend?"

A few scattered giggles while Kiyoteru-ahem, Mr Hiyama-didn't even blink dubiously or seem any bit fazed by the question. He just answered through a smile, "Yes."

Yuki and a few other girls trilled, "Oooh!" while the boys continued the "Eww" that had first appeared when they'd kissed.

'Hey, you'd be lucky to ever get a girl like me.'

This was gonna be a very long day.

X x x X

"Okay. Okay, look at this, I'm holding up seven fingers. And if I get rid of four-" Lily slowly bent in the required number of fingers, resisting the urge to stuff the demonstration in the kid's face, "how many do I have left?"

The child stared at her hands like they held the riddle to the mines of Moria. He had moss-green hair, a nasty overbite, and a complete cluelessness when it came to simple maths.

"How many?" she insisted, gritting her teeth a betraying fraction. "Come on, count them."

"But you have more than seven fingers."

"They're-ugh! Fine! Let's try again." She huffed and after tossing back her hair distressingly, snatched his math booklet. She hastily scanned the questions until she found one that involved double digits.

"Here. Ten minus nine." Hands up again, she splayed out all her slender fingers. "Ten fingers, okay?"

"Ten," he repeated.

"Yes. Now. Minus nine. -You do know how to count to nine, right?"

He nodded animatedly and, tapping his chubby hand against the desk, recited, "One, two, three, four, five, s-"

"Yeah, yeah, got it. So, _ten,_" she flexed her fingers again to make sure he was understanding, "minus_ nine."_

"Six, seven, eight, nine!" The kid finished.

Lily sighed and dropped down the appropriate number of fingers, left only with her right thumb.

"Come on, this is easy. How many left?"

"Zero."

Lily swore her eye twitched. "Zero? !"

He smiled elfishly. "My sister says thumbs aren't fingers."

"Are you kidding me! Okay!" She swapped her thumb with a raised middle finger-sure it was immature, but she had to get her annoyance out somehow. "Count it."

"One!"

"Finally!" she snapped, grabbing his pencil and writing a dark line in the answer space under the question.

"What's this one?" he asked next. He was pointing at the seven minus four question. Again.

Just as she was going to tell him that he may as well stop wasting his time and just-eat the math booklet, a hand descended on her shoulder and she looked up to see Kiyo.

He raised an eyebrow at her-which was when she realized he'd probably seen her displaying rude gestures at the brat. She smiled languidly.

"Need me for something?" she asked.

"Yes." He adjusted his glasses on his nose, his tone conversational. "It's almost recess."

"Thank god!" Lily exclaimed in relief while getting to her feet and stretching out her arms. "I'm sick of this place, and the kids."

His smile severed her relief. It was a lopsided, pitiful one, and made her interject brusquely with: "What's that face for?"

"I was about to ask you to take over my supervising duties, but now I think you're going to make me feel guilty about it."

Lily groaned. "They're bad enough in the classroom! Remember when Princess Suck-Up was being attacked by Captain Spazz? I don't want to split them up again. I think I have his rabies now."

"That would certainly be unfortunate," he smiled as if she was _joking_. "But please, I have to attend a meeting, just a short one. You won't be the only teacher there. It'll all go fine, I promise," he reassured her, placing a hand on her hip and fixing her with those soft almond eyes.

She frowned and made sure he saw it, but gave in with a morose, "Fine, you pathetic dork. I'll do your dirty work, like usual."

His face lightened up even more. If she just had to obey everything he said for him to look like that, she'd do it more often. That is, if she cared that much. He breathed, "Great. Lovely. Thank you."

"Arf, arf," she grumbled.

On cue, the bell rang for the second time that day, painfully loud and speckled with the scraping of desk chairs and scampering feet. Kiyoteru called to them, "Have fun!" as they flooded out the doors. The majority of them turned back and waved to him, including 'Princess Suck-Up,' who waited at the door for a moment like she wanted him to lead her out.

Lily thought teachers were supposed to be hated or something.

"And it's a bit windy out there, the park's on the East side and it never gets any cover. Here." He suddenly had his dark leather jacket in his hands and was draping its weight over her shoulders-she smirked at the action and tugged her blond ponytail out of the way.

"Thanks. Do I need a whistle and rifle for this?"

He chuckled in his characteristic airy and distracted way. "Not quite. I've got to run; I'll be back before you know it." Kiyo swept out the door, she on his heels until he went up the left hallway and she had to follow the echoes of children's giggles to the playground.

Yay. She wrinkled her nose.

Lily found the park easily enough-it was a vibrantly-painted jungle gym structure, themed like a castle/pirate ship thing and filled with the devil's invention of woodchips. While the children crawled all over it like ants, she was a stranger to the place's more obscure playground additions; found herself circling the grass and concrete edging to inspect a weird plastic thing that-well, just looked like a Fisher-Price barstool.

Then, just in time for the example, two first grade boys rushed to it and the winner of their race leaped onto the chair. It immediately began spinning, faster and faster, and as she watched (with a growing queasy feeling) Lily noticed that the seat was tilted to ensure continuous twirling into hell.

Ugh. Even just watching it was gonna make her sick.

"That thing makes me really dizzy. I don't like it!"

Lily cringed like she'd just been shown something especially disgusting.

Yuki just smiled back up at her.

She'd come back again! And from where? She just appeared like some haunting ghoul, her ulterior motives to be revealed soon and to Lily's dismay. That is, if she gave her the chance.

Lily stomped away from that side of the park, fists in the jacket pockets. It was nearly the perfect size for her, disregarding the shoulders and more square shape than what she preferred-then again, Kiyoteru was, to be frank, not exactly the most masculine guy. She was almost taller than him, and that was _without_ counting her constant garb of high heels. To further ignore Yuki's scampering steps that were following her, Lily zipped it up and hunched up the collar-mm. He did smell like a man though.

Hah.

"Is that Mister Hiyama's jacket?" Yuki asked, full of childish curiosity in her words.

Lily didn't even spare her a glance. "Yep."

"Why do you have it? Don't you have a jacket?"

"No."

"My mommy always makes sure I bring a jacket, even if it's sunny, just in case."

"Cool."

"Where's Mister Hiyama?"

Lily scuffed her shoes into the grass as the breeze picked up, stinging her legs in their sheer pantyhose. Why did this little girl care so much? It was kind of strange. "Meeting."

"Why?"

"Cuz he's a teacher."

"Why are you doing his job?"

Lily narrowed her eyes, and not just as defense against the whipping wind. The brat-Christ, she almost sounded_ angry_ at what Lily was doing.

"Because he's in a _meeting_," she replied, tetchily.

"He isn't in a meeting all day. Why are you in our class?"

They strolled past another teacher who was reading on a bench, disinterested in the swarm of kids. "He just wanted me to help him, 'kay?"

"He doesn't need any help though," Yuki chirped. "He's a super great teacher."

And now Lily huffed, scraping her bangs back from where they were being tossed in the wind, perhaps a little too aggressively. "Look, I know you admire him or whatever, but how about you just let us do our jobs?"

"But you're not doing your job. You're not even watching."

"Leave me alone so I can, or I'll sic that spazzy kid on you again," Lily snapped, finally directing the spear of her gaze at the little girl.

Her brown eyes widened at the fury in the woman's voice, her happy skip draining away into an awkward shuffle, and Lily thought for a moment that she had finally quashed the child's spirit for irritation when Yuki's hand latched onto her. Or more specifically, onto Kiyo's jacket; fingers kneading insistently into the fabric like a pissed off cat.

This was getting creepy.

"You got something to say?" Lily asked slowly, tone dark.

And while the hurt from Lily's previous reproach slipped off the girl's face, her mouth pursed into an indignant pink frown like she had been personally offended by the question-eyes pitch black like stones, mirroring the older female's glower.

Lily was reminded immediately of some horror movie witch child, and found herself urgently scanning the park for a brief moment, in case she'd set some poor drooling kid on fire. All was well-until she was lurched off balance by a sudden furious tugging on her coat, dignity rushing away at the same speed her temper flared up inside her.

"Shit! What are you even doing!" she yelled, jolting the jacket out of Yuki's evil claws-and surprisingly tough grip. The girl wasn't giving up, though, her hands flying out again and knitting into the leather, sending Lily into a bizarre backwards shuffle accompanied with trying to detach Yuki's flailing arms from the coat. Her nails were flying and catching into Lily's palms.

"Yuki? Yuki, hey, calm down." Kiyoteru, in the true fashion that seemed to be inherited by everyone who was regularly at this school, popped up out of nowhere, armed with his typical gentle voice and lax grip that pulled the little girl from her attack.

Yuki was quick to make an excuse. "I saw you coming here! She has your jacket and- You-" she pointed at her teacher, leading Lily to carefully glance at him (quick enough so as not to allow another attack to happen without her watching), "You looked like you were cold. Like this." Yuki crossed her arms tight and rubbed her open palms against the opposite forearms. Her huge eyes were beginning to glaze like galaxy-print jumbo marbles. Galaxy-print, and hers were the black hole edition.

It seriously wouldn't be surprising if some kid really _was_ set on fire.

Lily scowled, not buying it, but Kiyoteru was an infamous sucker (seriously, he believed practically every load of crap Gumi served him on a daily basis, which was on one hand hilarious and on the other frustrating) so he crouched down next to the little girl. Sympathy-face was armed and at the ready. Lily rolled her eyes.

Yuki saw her action and fucking _glared_ at her. Like she was so mature. Lily did it right back.

But when Kiyoteru started to speak, Yuki's attention hooked into him and only him like a sword.

Lily was not surprised to hear (approximately) the following spewing out of his mouth: "Now Yuki I'm going to look past your obvious violent outburst because it really tickles me to know I have more than one female obsessing over me. Now say sorry and disregard how much you scared the shit out of my perfect Lily."

That attitude was probably the one that not only got him this job and a psychotic five year old stalker, but also his glasses punched into his face on the soccer field.

She crossed her arms at Yuki when the girl turned to face her. Her fingers were folded together, twiddling nervously, black-hole eyes trying to suck in and crush spaceship Masuda Lily.

"I'm sorry, Missus Masuda," she whimpered. Lily pushed back her shoulders, hugging the jacket closer to her to show that she wasn't about to give it up no matter how many attacks or gooey eyes she received.

"Uh-huh."

Kiyo's face turned up to look at her, all earnest and horribly handsome and waiting for a proper read-off of the script. She cocked an eyebrow at him. He did it back.

Impressively groaning her response, Lily put her weight into one hip. "Apology accepted."

His eyebrow didn't drop.

Ugh.

"And I'm sorry for yelling at you."

"It's okay, Miss Masuda." Yuki bobbed her head, deceptively cute pigtails flopping. "Sometimes my mom gets really grouchy like that too."

Suddenly Kiyoteru was back on his feet and was steering Lily away by the arm, severing her low snarl before she could snap something back. He said amicably to Yuki, "Go play in the park before we have to go back inside," and drew Lily away from the crowd of kids.

As soon as they were-hardly-out of earshot, Lily screeched hoarsely in a terrible lack of attempt to keep her voice level, "Did you see what that little freak did? You can't fix that with an apology! You fix that with sedatives!"

"Lily, calm down," Kiyo soothed, his hand crossing her back to hover on her hip. "I saw what happened."

"You just don't care!"

"She's..." At the second Lily's mouth opened to insert her thoughts, he sped up his mind and managed, "She's just a little possessive."

"Possessive? No._ I'm_ possessive over my PS3 and the last slice of pie. She's fucking _all_ over you, man, like you belong to only her. At least I'm willing to share."

"Do you, Lily?"

"Don't avoid the subject. And yes, who do I marathon Call of Duty with? That's not the point, though. How long has Yuki been like that?"

Kiyo slowly shrugged, his gaze skirting away from hers every time she tried to make him look at her. He made a contemplative 'ehhhhhhhh, wellllll,' noise.

They stopped near the school wall, a decent distance away from the playground. That lazy teacher with the book had finally set it aside for more important matters, like a certain little girl who would tear out someone's tongue if they called Kiyoteru a rude name.

"Why didn't you tell me? I could have brought a leash for her. Or for you."

Kiyoteru shrugged again-she seemed to have crushed all his resolve.

"I'm admiring your spine."

"I'm a grade-school teacher, Lily, it's not exactly required."

She stared at him in the moment that passed, her icy glower level with his squeamish half-smile. He really was a dork. Who somehow managed to attract the affections of a loyal and determined six year old.

Well, with that smile, no wonder he did.

Lily snorted and followed it up with a rough laugh, shaking her head with no impression of her being impressed with his avoidance. "You geek. Next time you have an underage admirer, I'd like you to tell me before you make me meet her. To, you know, avoid the hair-pulling and calling each other sluts."

"Fair enough."

X x x X

"Ahhh, it's over! It's over. Finally. I feel like I'm out of the noose." Lily threw her head back, slumping in that cushy comfortable chair, limbs splayed in exhaustion.

Kiyoteru smiled at her over his shoulder, swiping away the last of the spelling test corrections off the board. The text was sloppy and slightly crooked, obviously Lily's writing. She felt like that was her one and only accomplishment of the day-she'd spelt everything right, at least. From story reading (which was cut short because of her starting an argument with some kid over the name of Peter Rabbit's siblings) to sending them down the hall to music class (she'd had enough trouble coaxing Yuki away from Kiyoteru who was staying behind, but the sneaky little math idiot trying to merge into some other passing class drained her patience completely), she'd had a very long stressful day. Nothing could make this better, release the knots in her back and the ache from her head, except for perhaps a steaming cup of dark tea and an evening-straight of House.

"Was the day worth it?" he asked.

Lily bent an arm behind her head, staring at him through lethargic eyes. "Show me the cash and maybe it will be."

He set his shoulder bag onto the desk in front of her, unzipping the top. She thought he was going to produce a wad of bills but that hope was crushed as he just took a folder of papers and slipped them in. Well. After today she knew hoping was useless. So was believing in luck. And decency. And karma.

Or maybe she was just being over-dramatically pessimistic.

Speaking of negative mindsets... As Kiyoteru did up the zipper, the bag shifted and knocked into the quirky-looking paperweight, tumbling it closer to Lily.

She scooped it up gingerly between two fingers, like it would bite. Teacher's Pet. In her day, you got teased and laughed at for being the teacher's bitch, but it seemed to be something Yuki was really striving for. Striving for as in, run to the ends of the earth and back as long as she gets student of the month.

Pathetic, much.

"Still thinking of her?" Kiyoteru asked smoothly as he leaned back on the edge of his desk. He slipped off his glasses for their end-of-the-day touch-up but kept looking at her even as his world turned into nothing more than a blur.

"My name is Lily Masuda. I dwell on things that piss me off," she said flatly and flipped the figurine in her palm. It was kind of heavy. If it was used expertly, it could easily knock someone out.

Maybe that was the point.

She shivered and put it back down.

"What's irritating you about it?" He happily scrubbed at his glasses lenses before shoving the wirey frames back on his nose. "Must we go over the lesson on sharing?"

"You're a funny boy, Kiyo. No." She mindlessly pulled out the elastic in her hair, allowing it to cascade freely along the back of the chair. Ruffling her blonde tresses, she exhaled as the cool air hit her abused scalp. However, it wasn't a moment reserved for kicking off her shoes and relaxing-Lily replied, "Why do you think she does that?"

"No idea. Well, I suppose there _is_ a hunch-that her home life is less than pleasant." His softly handsome face creased a little under the weight of that thought. She could tell he'd pondered it before. "It's not my duty to pry into such things. I'd like to, but, I don't think I can. Besides, maybe it's none of that, maybe she just sees me for the perfection I am."

"Remember what I said about you being funny? Still true, man, still true."

The mood of their subject lightened considerably after the influence of such a jest, and now Kiyoteru brought up it's conclusion. "It doesn't trouble me too much to have her act that way. Today was the only time she's acted out. Otherwise she's very mindful of the rules and other people."

"I just set her on edge?"

"Maybe she was envious."

"I don't blame her." Lily breathed out heavily again, gave one more semi-spin in her chair, and asked, "We ready to finally leave this place?"

"Only if you are."

"Hell, yes."

Kiyoteru grabbed his bag, slung it over one shoulder, and passed her his coat again. She hugged it close to her but before she could slip away from the school, relatively unharmed, her eyes snagged on that freaking paperweight once again. The worm was smiling enthusiastically at Lily-even though it's initial subject was Kiyoteru. Weapon-shaped or not, the haunting smile of it really sunk into her retinas, as something less than ghostlike. Maybe...it wasn't really such a weird thing. Most of her own school memories consisted of detesting the mere sight of her educators, but that couldn't have been for everyone.

Even if Yuki was being totally over the edge about it, upon reflection that gratuitously blanched out the jacket incident, it was actually_ kind of_ cute.

_Including_ the jacket incident, though...

"Coming?"

"Eh, one second."

Kiyoteru nodded, announced that he was going to start up the car and would wait for her, then left the classroom in his clipped stoic stroll.

She just couldn't take her eyes off that paperweight.

Maybe Yuki wasn't insane, and only had an adorable affection for her teacher. But, the little girl had brought Lily into this whether she liked it or not, and the blonde was used to getting her way.

Sharing. Hah.

She tore a piece of paper from a notebook, wielded a pencil, and scribbled, "My boyfriend. My jacket. Your homework. Return it to me after school and maybe you'll get to hold his hand."

She almost wanted to write something about lunch money too, but held back for poetic purposes. Snatching a horrendously high assorted pile of workbooks from the back cabinet, she dropped them all into Yuki's desk with her pink-glittered name tag.

She placed the note atop it. The assortment was now ready to greet the girl first thing in the morning.

Maybe she could come to work again tomorrow.


End file.
